Differences, However Small
by The Great Kelly The Great
Summary: Each person is different from the next, some more than others. Some people never do anything of importance. Others have a destiny. Draco's POV. PG-13 just in case. Another one of my short angst-y little things.


Disclaimer: Nothing is mine?  Who said nothing was mine?  All this time I thought I was getting paid for this!  LIARS!

A/N Review and go read my other fics.  Told from Draco Malfoy's POV.

Differences, However Small

Well, Potter has done it again.  Always the hero, always having to be a cut above the rest of us.  Well, I want to let him know that he isn't.  He's just a normal guy, just like the rest of us.  He isn't better.  He isn't more important to the wizarding world.

Potter went and entered the Triwizard Tournament.  He got someone to put his name in the Goblet of Fire, and he was picked.  And he is going to get himself killed.  And most everyone else is going to weep, to mourn.  But not me.

I am going to remain emotionless.  Potter isn't as important to the wizarding world as many think.  He hasn't got extraordinary powers.  He only survived because his mother died for him.  No other reason.

I can honestly say that I hope he at least gets hurt.  I don't want him to die, for I hate death, but I hope he gets hurt.  It would teach him that he is normal.  On the night he got picked, he was probably sitting in his common room and gloating over winning with his friends, the Mudblood and Weasel.

But he has an easy life.  Sure he lives with muggles over the summer, and everyone claims they are awful to him, but it can't be anything compared to what I go through.

Every year when I come home, I am beaten for not keeping my grades above a Mudblood's.  Then I am beaten for a thousand other pointless reasons.

Father takes out a cane and hits me with it, repeatedly.  He waits between lashes, letting the pain sting, then hitting again on the exact same spot.  It hurts enough to be hit on fresh skin, but to be hit repeatedly in the same spot is agony.  

But it isn't the actual physical beating that hurts.  I can live through that, and I have.  But it is the emotional beating that kills me, tears away at me.  The fact that my father beats me, the man who is supposed to be a role model.  He is supposed to be my hero.

But I hate him.  I am truly capable of Hate.  That is true of few people.  It is a hard emotion to maintain, to keep intact.  But I can, and I live through it every year.

Once father put the Imperius Curse on mother, the one person who loves me, cares for me.  He forced her to beat me with the cane.  

He just sat in his favorite chair and watched, like it was a great sporting event.  Like it was entertainment.

Once during that beating I looked at mother, specifically at her eyes.  They were filled with sorrow, pain at what she was doing.  She was hurting her one and only child, the one thing she loved and could cling to.  And I watched her try and fight the Curse, but nothing worked.  She was too weak.

I still have battle scars because of father's beatings.  Anyone who sees them asks how I got them, but I remain silent, giving them that stony look I have become famous for.  Then they just leave me alone.

On the night of the third task I sat in the audience, looking forward to seeing Potter go down.  I sat next to Crabbe and Goyle, my "friends".  Really it was a convenient friendship.  Our parents were all Death Eaters, so we were expected to like each other.  Really I hated them.  They followed my every command; they wouldn't care at all about me.  If I told them of how father beats me, they would nod, then walk off.

Crabbe and Goyle were talking dully, more like grunting, when the task began.  I was excited at seeing Potter's progress.

But it appeared he was actually doing all right.  He spent a while in a cloud of golden mist; I don't know what he was doing.  He was just standing in it, looking terrified.

But he got out and moved on.

But when he and Diggory grabbed the Cup (together, I noticed.  Not just letting Diggory win, though he had been there first), they disappeared.

Panic and chaos broke forth.  Everyone was shouting, teachers were trying to bring back order.  And I just sat through it, stunned, yet showing no sign of it.

Mudblood Granger was in tears.  The Weasel was trying to calm her down, while looking pretty scared himself.  I was shocked.  No one I knew showed that kind of friendship towards each other.  But I was a Slytherin; no one cared about each other.  They only wanted to know what was in it for them.

Hours later, when people were still screaming, Potter came back, appearing out of nowhere.  He looked terrified, and he was holding, gripping onto something for dear life.  And I looked at what it was he was holding.

It was Diggory's body.  Diggory was dead.  When he had been alive and happy hours before.  It hit me how fleeting life is.  How fragile it is.  It can be preserved for years, until one day, like an old clock, it just stops.  Or it can be instantly ended, like putting out a candle.

The Minister, Moody and Dumbledore were all crowded around Potter.  They were talking, and the Moody helped Potter up and began helping him walk.  Potter looked defeated, like he had been touched by Death.

I kept staring after them, even after they were out of my sight and inside the castle.  Potter had experienced death and hardship, just like I had. 

When I found out what had happened, that Voldemort had risen again, the first thing I thought was 'Father will be happy'.  Then I thought how terrible it was for me.  Father would be training me for a Death Eater; he would try to bend me to his will even more.  I would resist, and he would try harder.

And that year I realized that Potter was different.  He wasn't just another face.  He was different than the rest of us.  Our biggest problems were the homework due in a week.  He had a destiny, and he had to fulfill it.


End file.
